When he turned from the body and put a scrap of something in his pocketbook—“Well, what is it?” Lomas said. “He was drowned, I suppose?”
“He was drowned all right—about teatime last night. Say at dusk. Now for the scene of death. Where is it?”
“Just by a bridge on a byroad somewhere between here and Byfleet Station.”
“I ask you, why does a gentleman of fashion about to commit suicide come and look for a bridge on a byroad somewhere between here and Byfleet Station?”
“Somebody’s took some pains in this Charlecote business,” the Superintendent said.
Reggie laughed. “The Superintendent touches the spot—as ever. Come on!”
He stopped his car some distance from the bridge, and they went forward on foot.
“There’s a big car been over here,” Bell said. “Yet you wouldn’t think it was much of a motor road.” It was a narrow gravel road and very loose. Just below the steep pitch of the bridge a car had been stopped, and in stopping or starting again had torn up the loose gravel. Thence to the canal was only half a dozen yards. The path was much trampled and the grass and bushes by the bank beaten down. “All that may have been done fishing him out,” Bell said. “But that don’t explain the car. They took him off in a wood cart. I suppose since motors were invented there never was one came down this road and stopped just here.”
“Not till last night,” Lomas nodded.
“So somebody,” said Reggie, “somebody put Herbert in a car, brought him down here, and chucked him in. Who was somebody? Geoffrey and the angel wife, eh, Lomas, old thing?”
“Somebody put in some fine work, what? He wouldn’t have been found for weeks or forever, but a barge came along and stirred him up. And they don’t have a barge along here once a month.”
“Yes, there’s plenty of brains about somewhere. Well, let’s get busy. Herbert’s happy home comes next.”
The car again broke the law on the way back.
Herbert Charlecote had lived in a big block of flats several stories up.
“Did himself pretty expensively, don’t you know,” Lomas said, looking round the elaborate room.
“He’s paid for all now, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.
“Do you know, I don’t feel sentimental about dear Herbert’s doom,” Reggie smiled. “You’d better get on to his papers. I want a man on the phone,” and he went out and was gone some time.
When he came back he sat himself down in the window-seat and opened the big casements. There was a low stone sill which held a box of flowers. The smell of oak-leaf geranium and verbenas came into the room. “Rather oily scents, aren’t they?” Reggie said. “I’m afraid he was rather oily, the late Herbert. How are you getting on?”
“He was certainly pressed for money,” Lomas said. “Here’s his passbook and a letter from his bank manager complaining that he’s overdrawn again. The £20,000 he came in for under his uncle’s will—he wanted it badly.”
“And yet as soon as he knows of that will he goes and gets drowned. Suggestive, isn’t it?” Reggie smiled.
“I’m hanged if I know what it suggests.” Lomas stared at him.
“Oh, my dear Lomas! Somebody expected Herbert was going to get more than £20,000 by his uncle’s death; going to scoop the whole estate. Only he didn’t. So he’s found dead. Can you make out from that passbook when Herbert got into difficulties?”
“About nine months ago. He’s been living with nothing in the bank ever since.”
“About nine months ago. Then for nine months his uncle did nothing to help him. The murdered uncle wouldn’t help the impecunious nephew. Well, Lomas, old thing?”
“I suppose you’re playing some hand of your own,” Lomas frowned.
Superintendent Bell came forward. “Here’s a sort of betting-book, sir. He put his luck at cards in it too. He was some gambler.”
“Any names?” Lomas said quickly.
“All sorts of names, sir. Nothing instructive, so to speak. You might say that’s curious.” He pointed to a page on which, in a large, blank space, appeared the one letter, “N.”
Reggie leapt from the window-seat and rang the bell. “As ever the Superintendent touches the spot,” he laughed. Herbert Charlecote’s manservant, pallid and frightened, answered the bell. “Now, my man, in one minute Dr. Newton will be at the door; you will let him in; he will ask for Mr. Herbert Charlecote; you will say nothing to him, nothing at all, and Superintendent Bell will be out in the hall to see that you do say nothing; you will show Dr. Newton in here. Go on, Bell. Look after him.” He bustled them out.
“So ‘N’ stands for Newton, does it?” Lomas said. “How do you know he’ll come?”
“Because he’s just driven up in his car. Because I phoned to say Mr. Herbert Charlecote was asking for Dr. Newton. Now you get in there.” He thrust Lomas into an inner room.
Dr. Newton, more florid than ever, hurried in, and pulled up short at the sight of Reggie. “Mr. Fortune? Oh, delighted to meet you.” He was out of breath. “But I thought I was to see Mr. Charlecote.”
“Did you though? That was very sanguine of you.”
“I don’t understand you, Mr. Fortune. Are you here professionally?”
“For the Criminal Investigation Department.”
“Really, though, really?” Dr. Newton was still short of breath. “And it was you wanted to see me? Anything I can do, of course.”
“You can tell me what was your little bet with Herbert Charlecote.”
Dr. Newton lost some of his colour. “You bewilder me, Mr. Fortune. I am not a betting man. Pray explain yourself. And I must request you to take a different tone.”
“Where is Herbert Charlecote?”
“Well, where is he?” Dr. Newton echoed. “I confess I don’t understand the situation. I am told over the telephone that Mr. Charlecote wishes to see me, and—”
“That gave you a bad quarter of an hour, didn’t it? There’s worse coming, Newton. Yesterday afternoon”—Reggie strolled round the table and put himself between Dr. Newton and the door—“yesterday afternoon you took Herbert Charlecote for
